Dra

the long version

Dra-, Levine's first long fictional work, takes the reader into the comic, yet dystopic world of the title character, who inhabits a drab and dreary world of utter dread. The work begins with her visit to an employment agency which punishes the terrified woman for being unable to chose between potential jobs, culminating in a terrible vision of rage and torture which the all-controlling Administrator proclaims is merely a self-tyranny. Levine's new work explores, through a Kafka-like world, how the meek and sane are made mad in a society that demands choices that only lead to less and less individual choice and control. Levine's characters may have difficulty functioning in the so-called "normal" world, but in her exploration of that world we recognize that the terror they feel is justified as we witness, with increasing horror, the insanity of the world we ourselves inhabit.